Archive for the 'Jim Plunkett' Tag Under 'USC' Category

The Register ranked the Top 10 quarterbacks in Pac-12 history this week, placing Stanford junior Andrew Luck No. 4 and rising. The Cardinal QB is on pace to break both the conference single season passing efficiency rating and Matt Leinart's career completion percentage mark.

So here's your chance to rate Luck (photo) against the likes of John Elway, Leinart and Jim Plunkett.

It's fairly easy to get a read on Andrew Luck, the latest flag-bearer in a line of celebrated Stanford quarterbacks. His name is tossed around with that of Cardinal greats John Elway and Jim Plunkett.

One article mentions Luck's 3.8 grade-point average, his majoring in architectural design and his affection for Frank Lloyd Wright.

Another story details how he followed his father, Oliver Luck, a former West Virginia and Houston Oilers quarterback and current West Virginia athletic director, to football. Andrew was born in Washington, D.C. and went to grade school in Frankfurt, Germany, when his father worked for NFL Europe and learned to love soccer and the Europe's palatial sports stadiums. He went to high school in Houston, Texas, where he was co-valedictorian at Stratford High and rated as a top-five quarterback in the nation before signing with Stanford.

Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh calls Luck an “anti-celebrity” quarterback and praises Luck as “the best football player I've ever been around.” And that's saying a lot, considering Harbaugh was a former All-America quarterback at Michigan in the mid-1980s, a 1987 NFL first-round selection by the Chicago Bears, an 1995 AFC Offensive Player of the Year as a member of the Indianapolis Colts, a 14-year NFL veteran, a Western Kentucky assistant, an Oakland Raiders quarterbacks coach who went to a Super Bowl and a University of San Diego head coach before arriving at Stanford in 2007. (Click here to read my Thursday column on Harbaugh.)

But getting a read on Luck, 6-foot-4, 235-pound redshirt sophomore who has emerged as the nation's top NFL QB prospect, is a little trickier. Reading Luck is what USC (4-1, 1-1) is struggling to do as the Trojans go into Saturday's game at No. 16 Stanford (4-1, 1-1).